Desarrollo Económico (Buenos Aires)

La deuda argentina: historia, default y reestructuración

The processes that led to the default and restructuring constitute the main focus of the paper. Chapter 2 examines the evolution of the foreign debt in the long run. Chapter 3 focuses on the analysis of the macroeconomic performance before and after the crisis. Chapter 4 presents the public sector's financial obligations after the default and describes the restructuring proposal. Chapter 5 discusses the relationship between Argentina and the IMF and its repercussions on the international financial architecture.

El foco principal de este trabajo son los procesos que condujeron al default y a la reestructuración de la deuda. El capítulo 2 examina la evolución de la deuda en el largo plazo. El capítulo 3 se enfoca en el comportamiento macroeconómico antes y después de la crisis. El capítulo 4 presenta la evolución de las obligaciones financieras del sector público después del default y describe la propuesta de reestructuración. El capítulo 5 discute la relación entre la Argentina y el FMI y sus repercusiones sobre la arquitectura financiera internacional.

Protesta popular y redes clientelares en la Argentina: el reparto federal del plan trabajar (1996-2001)

This paper presents a statistical analysis of the determinants that ruled the federal allocation of the Argentinean Plan Trabajar for the period 1996-2001. The overall results indicate that this emergency employment program was created as a mechanism to deal with increasing unemployment. However, the federal distribution of resources was later associated to the frequency of popular protest and the parallel evolution of the so-called "picket movement". The political variables included in the model suggest that the Peronist Party succeeded in making a better political use of federal allocation of funds than did the Unión Cívica Radical/Alianza.

Este trabajo presenta un análisis estadístico de los determinantes distributivos del Plan Trabajar a las provincias argentinas en el período 1996-2001. En general, los resultados indican que la creación de este plan de emergencia ocupacional obedeció a la decisión de luchar contra el creciente desempleo. La distribución federal de recursos, no obstante, pasó luego a estar también asociada con la frecuencia de la protesta popular y el desarrollo paralelo experimentado por el denominado movimiento piquetero. Por su parte, las variables políticas incluidas en el modelo sugieren que el Partido Justicialista ejerció mayor influencia sobre la asignación federal de fondos que la Unión Cívica Radical/Alianza.

"El fracaso argentino": interpretando la evolucion economica en el "Corto Siglo XX"

This study reviews a representative though not an exhaustive set of representative explanations of the poor performance achieved by Argentinas economy between the Great War and the 1989 crisis. It analyzes the literature by dividing it in accordance with two different approaches: one that assumed that economic performance was conditioned by structural factors, and another that attributes it to decisions on economic policies and conjunctural circumstances. Regarding the firts approach, it highlights the importance of colonial legacies, the asymmetry of international relations, problems related to the formation of capital, and the flaws of the entrepreneurial class that led the industrialization process. Among the second approach, emphasis is laid on those who point to the lack of State intervention or the States belated decision to intervene, those who hold the opposite view by stating that it was precisely because of State intervention that the economic parameters favorable to growth and development became distorted, those who point to problems about political and social institutions, and those who attribute poor performance to a series of citcumstancial processes. The last part of the study intends to underscore the role played in this process by the distance separating initial levels of development (aided by natural resources) and the levels of societal general development, chiefly in relation to the available human capital and to the quality of the institutions involved.

El trabajo revisa un conjunto representativo, aunque no exhaustivo, de interpretaciones sobre el pobre desempeño de la economía argentina entre la Gran Guerra y la crisis de 1989. Analiza la bibliografía agrupándola según dos aproximaciones distintas; quienes asumen que dicha performance estuvo condicionada por factores estructurales, y quienes la atribuyen a decisiones de política económica y circunstancias coyunturales. Entre los primeros, destaca la importancia que se ha dado a los legados coloniales, el peso de las instituciones, la asimetría en las relaciones internacionales, problemas en la formación de capital y la inadecuación del empresariado que dirigió el proceso de industrialización. Entre las segundas, quienes señalan la falta de (o tardía) intervención estatal, los que por el contrario atribuyen a esta intervención la distorsión de los parámetros económicos que facilitan el crecimiento y desarrollo, quienes señalan problemas en la institucionalidad político-social, o atribuyen la performance simplemente a la resultante de una serie de procesos circunstanciales. En la parte final del artículo se apunta a subrayar el papel que la distancia entre el grado de crecimiento del producto en el momento inicial (favorecido por la dotación de recursos naturales) y el nivel de desarrollo general de la sociedad, fundamentalmente en cuanto a su capital humano y calidad institucional, pueden haber tenido en este proceso.

The rise and fall of the third position: Bolivia, Perón and the Cold War, 1943-1954

The doctrine of the Third Position drawn by Peron between 1946 and 1955 was an attempt to find an alternative to the opposition between the Liberal West and the Communist East. In practical terms, it resulted in the project to create a bloc of Latin-American nations independent both from Washington and from Moscow. Peron's project interpreted the region's peaking nationalist feelings and amounted to a challenge on the United States in the toughest phase of the Cold War. However, the Third Position soon revealed the limitations -economic weakness, diplomatic dilettantism- that led to its demise and sub-ordination to the iron logic of the Cold War. This article examines one of those limitations, scarcely explored by the literature: the hegemonic, even sub-imperialist aspect that the Third Position assumed in the eyes of Argentina's neighboring countries. This trait would eventually induce those countries to seek the protection of a strong and distant Empire, the United States, before submitting to the ambitions of a weaker, closer power, Peron's Argentina. This article reconstructs such political dynamics drawing on the competition between Washington and Peron for the control of Bolivia between 1943 and 1955 as an example.

Instability without collapse. Presidential resignations: Argentina in 2001

Since the 1980s, there have been numerous presidential resignations in different countries in Latin America. With respect to this phenomenon, this article puts forward two questions: What circumstances are most favorable for provoking presidents to resign and what is the impact on the presidential system. To address these questions, a case study is used, that of the presidency of de la Rúa in Argentina (1999-2001) with the aim of constructing a hypothesis that should be tested by additional research. This analysis contends that Argentine presidential resignations took two forms in accordance with the distribution of party power in Congress: a) a parliamentary response to the crisis and b) a presidential response to the crisis. The first occurred in a multiparty context that facilitated the formation of alternative parliamentary majorities. Within this framework, Congress deprived the president of support, precipitating his departure. The second seems to be characteristic of contexts that are bipartisan or in which there is a predominant party. In this case, it is the departing president who, within a crisis situation, manages to oversee an orderly succession. As for the impact of presidential resignations on the functioning of presidential regimes, the article puts forward the importance of redefining the place of the fixed term as a characteristic of presidentialism. In light of the numerous presidential resignations, the fixed presidential mandate does not seem to be a necessary component of the definition of presidentialism as it is, in contrast, for legislators. From this another question arises: when analyzing the political dynamic of presidentialism, it is necessary to incorporate presidential resignation as a possible factor.